'Babar Came To Me And Said..'- Haris Rauf On Career-Best T20I Bowling Figures
Haris Rauf celebrating a dismissal [Source: AP]
Pakistan demolished New Zealand in the first T20I last evening in Lahore, winning the encounter by 88 runs. The hosts fielded their strongest XI, with several key players returning after missing the Afghanistan series, while the Black Caps landed on Pakistani shores with an inexperienced side.
While defending 182, pacer Haris Rauf emerged as the hero for the hosts, rattling the opposition batters with his career-best T20I figures of 4 for 17. The ace pacer's victims were Tom Latham, James Neesham, Rachin Ravindra, and Ben Lister.
As quoted by Cricket Pakistan, the 29-year-old mentioned how skipper Babar Azam motivated him before the second innings.
Here's what Rauf said
"It was important to put up this performance because I was playing for a long time for Pakistan. On this pitch, I tried to bowl stump-to-stump. If you start well, like Shaheen and Zaman gave today, you gain a lot of confidence. Your role gets defined a lot more when you have such a good bowling attack. During our batting innings, Babar bhai came to me and said 'I want you to take 4 wickets today."
Overall, in 58 T20Is, Rauf has picked 72 wickets at an average of 22.94 since making his debut back in 2020.
Both teams will be in action this evening, taking on each other in the second T20I, with Pakistan leading the five-match series 1-0.
 "Vishal Mehra")
